Why the Genesis Coupe Shoulda Been a Pontiac

Pontiac stunk for 20 years, maybe more. I'm not even sure when when it started, I probably wasn't even alive. There hasn't been a relevant Pontiac in my lifetime.

The examples do little but illustrate why Pontiac had to die. We have these other cars and they're great, we really don't need Pontiac's fakeformance cars.

Why doesn't GM just sell the Pontiac name, much like the names Schwinn, or Indian Motorcycle Company? Maybe the Koreans or some American startup could really get something going!

Sure! You know, a Porsche 911 GT3 should be a Pontiac as well. And let's sell it for half-price. We'll call it the Phoenix. After all, Pontiac is only limited by its own imagination, right?

There aren't any beancounters or any unions or any of those other things to deal with. I'm sure Pontiac could whip up a strong portfolio as quick as Hyundai does/did. After all, what really separates these 2 companies?
/sarcasm

No, no, estreka, didn't you hear? Union leaders have made it abundantly clear that their organizations had nothing to do with the American auto industry's woes. They said it, so it's gotta be true.

For whatever reasons, GM powers that be decided that a niche RWD Sports division within GM wouldn't fly by itself.

But why not rebadge the worthy Pontiac RWD'ers as Chevrolets?
Chevrolet could dump the ancient Impala and replace it with a re-badged G8-based RWD sedan.

Bringing products like these to the table is called competition though, something GM forgot about for the last 30 years.

Sadly enough, I think estreka is right. There has to be a reason other than incompetence that Pontiac is dying. At least I hope so. I am curious how much a Pontiac 'Genesis' would cost.

I didn't realize that Mini's appealed to men. I always thought they were chick cars. Cool, but still chick cars.

I really think Mazda is the new Pontiac. They march to the beat of a different drummer. They're exciting, small, and seem very not corporate. So it makes sense that Mazda makes up a large part of the fantasy Pontiac list.

That's kinda funny. I was looking at a previous generation Mazda6 earlier today and thinking Mazda was a good representation of what Pontiac should have looked like. It's not a perfect match, but I believe the sporting soul of Mazda is similar to what Pontiac should have been. Too long was Pontiac a pretty version of Chevy. Pontiac is more about muscle and Kicking Butt than Mazda ever has been. Mini Cooper and Mazdaspeed3? Eh... I guess so. Genesis Coupe? Close. I'm thinking more of an affordable version Nissan G-series and Z-Cars. Civics are NOT Pontiac. Jeep Cherokee a Bonneville? Please... Get a CTS platform or something and that's a Bonneville. Although if Pontiac had an SUV, it would be a Jeep. The Camaro would be a Firebird more than a Coupe version of the G8. So think of Mazda but with an American Spirit. Oh well... at any rate, if/when we pull out of this Recession in a few years, Pontiac will be able to return. And this time, it should be a lean, mean, competitive brand. Better than ever. We should think of this as a clean slate!

I'm pretty sure that estreka is exaggerating a great deal just for the sake of doing it. Pontiac is an American brand name that existed proudly for a good long while. GM cars have suffered from the impression of lack of quality for at least the last 20 years. Pontiac, however, recently started a comeback with the Solstice, which was marginally successful, and the G8, which no one heard about because it was poorly marketed and suffered from the aforementioned impression of lack of quality. The point that our dear blogger friend is making is that there are cars that exist out in the world under $25 or 30,000 that exude quality and drivability and that Pontiac could have been making those cars the whole time if GM management decided it should be so. So, yeah, why not make the comparison to the GT3 because that isn't missing the point at all. /sarcasm or in estreka's case /douche. Even if the UAW is responsible for GM's woes, it and the other unions associated with GM could not, by themselves, have sunk the company. While the UAW did somewhat handcuff GM and the other American automakers they still could have focused on building quality cars, properly marketing them, and making a profit rather than re-branding the same mediocre vehicles. If GM wasn't mismanaged for so long it would still have a large market share similar to the one it had up until the mid 70's and wouldn't be on the brink of bankruptcy right now. And by the way, Hyundai took more than a decade to establish a meaningful market share in the U.S. and put out some seriously crappy cars when it first started. Nevertheless, Hyundai followed the model created by cars like the Mini and presented quality for less in, for example, the Genesis. There is no reason why GM could not have done the same.

pontiac was destined to fail. it shares the same identity as most celebrities; famous one day, forgotten the next. ever since people found out it was possible to tune cheaper imports for less price and more fun, detroit found itself pushed into a corner. go figure that they're going to do outrageous things to survive.

This is a fairly dumb editorial. Why do they need to be "pontiacs". Im sorry, but pontiac hasn't done ANYTHING worthwhile in recent times, the only two good pontiacs of recent is the modern GTO (a very underrated car in itself) and the G8 (one of the best cars on sale in the US today), and both of these are built and developed by GM's Australian division Holden. They are just badge Jobs, the only cars Pontiac itself has actually built are dismal and trail the class.

Good riddance, and the other useless divisions can go too. I cannot wait until GM is free of union contracts and useless clutter and can just deliver the americans great cars through the chevrolet brand. Because when you cut GM down to its core, it does have alot of worth.

GM is the new Pontiac

look around, Corvette, Camaro, CTS-V, G8 (which hopefully will live its life in the near future as a Chevrolet), then europe, with the Astra turbo, Corsa Turbo, Australia with the LS3 powered HSV ute/trucks.

Actually they are better then the new pontiac, they are the new BMW.

Since it appears GM will now sell off Opel/Vauxhall, why couldn't they have packaged Holden and Pontiac and sold that off to someone (Magna? Steyr?) rather than destroying the brand completely? I'm sure there are some of us who remember Pontiac as a viable brand, and under new ownership, who knows?

Ah...don't sweat it too much.

Nissan/Infiniti is the new Pontiac except their products have 5x better quality (Yes, it is. I've driven a G5 and a G6. Nissans are at least that much better) and 10x more mass appeal.

Pontiac didn't make a gorgeous car between the redesign of the Firebird in 1982 and the introduction of the Solstice a few years ago.

I think the brand killed itself with boring styling or unusual but not in an attractive way styling, just as much as it did with the loss of performance focus.

Its been agreed in these comments that the glory days of Pontiac were back in the 60s and early 70s. I just do not have any nostalgia for something that was THAT LONG ago.

I seriously think that the nostalgia and protest about the end of Pontiac is being drummed up by a few automotive editors who were driving at the tail end of Pontiac's greatness.

I can appreciate a Pontiac classic car, but I cannot bring myself to pine for a company that has produced only 1 or 2 vehicles with the "Pontiac soul" in my entire lifetime. At what point is it fair to stop talking about this idealized image of a Pontiac? If they jumped the shark 45 years ago like most people seemed to agree, then maybe its those old Pontiacs that were an anomaly and the real Pontiac soul is seen in cars like the Grand Prix?

Mitchtj I think you missed the point. I think he was implying that pontiac should have been more focused and if they were "competing" with those cars they might have a chance!

dougtheeng, I think you are right. Besides, if this move helps GM make better cars, who cares what logo is on the grille? Toyota is set to become the world leader with one brand (+2 for America).

Another case in point... in America, kids sometimes put the Honda logo on their Acura integra to make it look like the Japanese versions. This should tell you something about how necessary it is to have separate badging for a sports division.

And what about Subaru? They essentially have three platforms (Impreza, Legacy, Tribeca) sharing two engines (one 4 cyl and one 6 cyl) and one drivetrain (AWD) and yet they are ringing up the best year over year numbers in the industry. Simple designs with exciting variants and great reliability, GM could have used a division like that. Oops, they had Subie and sold it! Better to keep those godawful FWD Pontiacs with their plastic cladding, Fisher-Price interiors, and deep discounts to move them off the dealers' lots. People! GM products suck because the accountants and marketing gurus rule the roost instead of guys who just love to drive cars. Good riddance!

Pontiac's dead. There was more to the failure of this brand than just lack of product. The IMAGE of the moniker was so tainted by years of gold chain wearing Smokey & The Bandit wannabe types prowling the showrooms and plastic cladded abominations of warmed over G.M. iron passing for "excitement" in the lots that the pulling of the plug was euthanasia at it best, Dr. Kevorkian is smiling up from Hades with approval.

In the end, I do think losing Pontiac is a good thing. We should have lost it in the 70s. It should have gone down on a high. Unfortunately it didn't and it had to suffer years of mismanagement, only to be struck down as it was showing signs of improvement, including one of the best cars on the market today. Hopefully, this will allow GM to focus its development and advertising around a few core products that are well and truly good. Now I just hope the government allows them to build fun, exciting cars. I doubt it.

I think it's safe to say that mostly everyone feels the same about killing the Pontiac brand. To me, its main cause of self destruction was them being restricted to only being able to rebadge the poor quality, non-exciting, plastic POS's that GM was putting out. You really CAN'T polish a turd. No matter what you do with it, its always going to be a turd. Yes, the G8 is a great car. Yes, the Solstice was almost a nice car. But when you got inside it looked like any other cheap plastic clad GM. They even could have tried what Mercedes did with the SLK 63 AMG, squeeze a V8 in there (LS3) and let'er rip. But like the song says, "too much, too little, too late. . ."

It's important to remember one thing about GM. You cannot merely blame the lawyers and bean-counters for its faults. GM is not pure capitalism. GM became a hybrid of a corporation and a social institution. While competitive after WWII, it was stuck in the socialist experimentation of guaranteed wages, jobs, brands, job classification, seniority, and rigid hierarchy. GM had to serve unions, dealers and political expectations. GM had steadily transformed to meet those obligations, rather than produce the best product. The social experiment of GM is over, and its long run of "benign" socialism and largesse after the success of WWII is over.

Companies now need to be flexible to meet market demands, and so do workers. To help workers in this new environment, I suggest health insurance and pension/retirement should follow the employee. Also, education should be fleet and flexible, too, depending more on on-the-job credential programs to update skills and/or re-tool for demand in emerging fields. Any other ideas?

ohhh ..Mr The Mechanic..You are a brilliant guy !:) I love your ideas..last article (about Youngsters) was great..controvercial, but great..!

I agree with that: "
Which brings me to Pontiac. It's been sentenced to death, as I'm sure you've heard, and I'm not really that cool with it. Fact is, it shouldn't have happened. Pontiac's demise wasn't fate. It was murder. Cold-blooded murder. A result of bad management, and proof that people who don't like cars shouldn't work at car companies."

what GM did was turning it's as from Pontiac and than said , Yes this brand is the weakest, we have to disount it..that is a murder !

I think You 've chossen proper "line up " for Pontiac..it should be niche /performance brand for a long time, not anouonced to be..and than killed...

Subaru and Mazda would be good examples to fallow , but with american character (Ford and GM stronglyy enforce "eurpean(german to be specific )character into their cars..ok in small cars department that's ok (who cares about small cars:), but on limousines/muscle cars theritory they should preserve that unique american character(look at bestseller Chrysler 300 - it's deign is pure oldschool-American, no compromise..)..Lincoln and Caddy should fallow !

and I really miss Personal lux. segment:
Eldorado (based on Sixteen concept?) would be nice car!..shitty crisis thing...!

I belive Solstice and G8 should be preserved some way...
Chevy should rebadge g8 as 2-door retro-muscle Chevelle:) - bigger than Camaro -> almost 'full-sized" Challanger competitor...
there wont be GTO anymore !/'.!?!

Modern muscle debate.............................
ernwopr@wp.pl

Even a Pontiac living purely in one's imagination doesn't need an SUV, CUV or wagon as part of it's line up, in my view.

Wow. This article makes GM's current situation seem even more of a travesty than it already is.

With GM consolidating to four brands and selling off GM Opel/Vauxhall it will no longer be one of the worlds top five largest auto makers. Maybe then they'll be able to refocus on quality and better product innovation as a smaller outfit.

And the only reason GM has 20%+ of the Chinese car market is because the Chinese have despised the Japanese ever since the Rape of Nanking in the 30s.

I really hope part of the killing pontiac plan isn't killing the G8. I'm really really hoping it gets reincarnated as a chevy or something.

By the way, why would GM kill Buick? Buick is a way worse offender than Pontiac was.

Yeah, but hindsight is 20/20. Pontiac only makes one good car, the G8. The company is also a profit drainer.

Gen X and Y both lost interest in Pontiac years ago anyway. Name one Pontiac in the Fast and Furious series.

i don't know why we are mourning the loss anyway. its not like we live in a world where we can only buy pontiacs. all the cars listed by the "mechanic" are great cars, and guess what? they are all available for purchase, by solid companies, that back their product, because they make products worth backing. so quit whining and go buy one. in time you'll learn to enjoy a quality car for a change, even if it doesn't have the pontiac logo on the grill.

There's a difference between the concept of what Pontiac could have been and the reality of what it is (or was).

In concept, Pontiac was the "excitement division", a brand within a brand family that promised products designed for more performance. There's certainly room for a division like that within large automakers. Witness the relative success of BMW's M division, MB's AMG, and Audi's S and RS lines. These sub-brands designated cars with an extra dollop of performance and styling over their mainline counterparts.

In reality, Pontiac was not at all like the M, AMG, or S lines. For 30 years Pontiacs have been little more than rebadged Chevys. It takes more than a different logo, plus maybe some goofy plastic cladding, to support a distinct brand identity. Pontiac, the warmed-over Chevy division, should have been killed years ago.

Personally, I think this article is retarded and biased. This is what I'm basically getting out of this article:

Any car with anything good about it SHOULD BE A PONTIAC. ????!!@#$%

Why should a "$22,000 starting priced turbin-engine, rear-wheel drive coupe" be Pontiac? (Hyundai Genesis Coupe)

Why should an "affordable, attractice, strong-perferming crossovers that look good and allow dads who can't afford a BMW X5 to have a little fun while they're haulting the kids to Chuck E Cheese" be a Pontiac? (Mazda CX-7, CX-9)

Why should a "Small. Economical. Affordable and fun. A premium small car for guys who don't want just an econobox" be a Pontiac? (Mini Cooper)

..the list goes on ...Why should a Mazda 3, Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8, Honda Civic, etc. etc. be a Pontiac?

So this is saying that any car that has anything good about it (value, performance, price) must be a Pontiac?

That is complete bias and BS.

However, why are they NOT Pontiacs? Because Pontiac was never good enough. Pontiac's been dead long before I even knew cars existed. To top that off, it's an American car. German cars will ALWAYS, ALWAYS be better than American cars. Also, Japanese cars might not be as strong as American cars, but they definitely do have better engines and performance. (Excluding all the nice stuff like the Mustang or Corvette, etc.) Hyundai may suck in general, but the Genesis definitely is some new generation stuff.

So in the end, what was the point of this article? None.

Pontiac- good riddance. I can't believe that GM is holding onto the GMC badge either. What a joke. Instead of building a Buick with a cushy ride, a Chevy with a middle of the road ride/handling trade-off, and a poor riding fake performing (hello loud quad tipped mufflers on a piece o junk Grand Am- more noise than power) Pontiac, why can't GM develop one car line with a superior ride/handling balance, aka Honda. It is ridiculous that they are paying to keep these other brands alive purely for pathetic re-badging efforts of cars and trucks with slightly different tuning.

"German cars will ALWAYS, ALWAYS be better than American cars."

Umm...bias? Pot calling the kettle black?

Good idea. I see SRT 8 Jeep Cherokees all over. I guess that Chrysler is just going to hand the hemi over to GM too.

I've always associated Pontiac with white trash and the trailer park variety. I don't think the Genesis coupe or other vehicles mentioned deserve such a stereotype.

This is one of the most inane posts the Mechanic has ever made (and he has made quite a few). If Pontiac had a slew of well-designed, popular cars, it would do better! Holy crap, what an idea. The fact is nothing GM has produced in the last ten years, aside from the Corvette, has been in this field, so this is simply wishful thinking, and useless at that. Of course Pontiac should have had more exciting, youthful cars rather than staid old sedans and atrocities like the G3, but for cars like that you basically have to look at a company outside of GM. Their ineptitude spreads across all lines, except when you hit the upper echelons of price. Caddys are competitive, as are expensive sports cars, but anything below $30,000... yeah right. It just was not meant to be.

I remember Pontiac. That's what Grandpa Roy used to drive.
There was an Indian head on the hood and the thingy lit up at night a real pretty yellow.
Sorry to hear they are going away. Grandpa died 30yrs ago. He would have missed them.

Yea, Pontiac could have also placed a corvette engine in the Aztec for a poor-man's BMW X-6. An eighth the price for 80 times the functionality!

I'm sorry... but since when has the MINI been an affordable car? It's a great car but freaking expensive for what it is...

Now that you mention the woulds that pontiac should have made or done, here goes mine. This are the "shoulds" that Gm should do to prevent disappearing like pontiac is today.

I hate to see pontiac go but I also think gm should have done this along time a go. Ever since they killed oldsmobile, they should had also killed gmc, pontiac, buick, saab, saturn and the hummer brand. This way gm(chevrolet and cadillac) would have more design liberties without having to worry about their other brands.

Seriously who buys buicks except for china, no body does. killing buick should not be a problem in the states as long as they keep buick in china alive, and I going to tell you how. All GM has to do, to keep its Chinneese buick alive is to do what GM is best known for doing. Rebating is the solotion to its chinneese problem. GM could gather its best models from around the globe and send them to china as a rebatch chinnese buick.

keeping the GMC brand(second best selling GM brand) is useless and it can end in a counterproductive fashion for GM in the long term. As we all know having a truck company is bad(just ask ford GM and Chrysler) having two in the same company(Chevrolet and GMC) could be catastrophic for the newly restructured GM.

Hummer as a brand needs to go but for all those offroaders out there, GM could built the sweetass Hummer HX concept they showed a year ago in detroit as a new Hummer model for the Chevrolet brand.

Pontiac has two or three respectable cars out of its whole line up, which are Soltice, G8 and maybe the G6. To my opinion the G6 thosen't fit in GM anymore mainy because the malibu is a much better car. My Suggestion for the G8, is for it to be added into the chevrolet line up but not as camaro sedan ss as edmunds suggested but as total new model.

To solve the soltice dilemma, I think it be awesome to have a little hot roster in the cadillac luxury brand, Wouldn't you agree. Cadillac should give the soltice a whole new make over to make it more appealing to cadillac buyers. Cadillac should offer the base model as the gxp(suspension and 265hp turbo 2.0litre direct fuel injected engine found in a gxp) and for the V series cadillac should offer the 300hp direct fuel injection 3.6 engine and transmition found in the Camaro and Cts. Give the V series rodsters a light weight treatment(like bmw does to it M series) and a better suspention and we have our selfs a winner.

Now that you mention the woulds that pontiac should have made or done, here goes mine. This are the "shoulds" that Gm should do to prevent disappearing like pontiac is today.

I hate to see pontiac go but I also think gm should have done this along time a go. Ever since they killed oldsmobile, they should had also killed gmc, pontiac, buick, saab, saturn and the hummer brand. This way gm(chevrolet and cadillac) would have more design liberties without having to worry about their other brands.

Seriously who buys buicks except for china, no body does. killing buick should not be a problem in the states as long as they keep buick in china alive, and I going to tell you how. All GM has to do, to keep its Chinneese buick alive is to do what GM is best known for doing. Rebating is the solotion to its chinneese problem. GM could gather its best models from around the globe and send them to china as a rebatch chinnese buick.

keeping the GMC brand(second best selling GM brand) is useless and it can end in a counterproductive fashion for GM in the long term. As we all know having a truck company is bad(just ask ford GM and Chrysler) having two in the same company(Chevrolet and GMC) could be catastrophic for the newly restructured GM.

Hummer as a brand needs to go but for all those offroaders out there, GM could built the sweetass Hummer HX concept they showed a year ago in detroit as a new Hummer model for the Chevrolet brand.

Pontiac has two or three respectable cars out of its whole line up, which are Soltice, G8 and maybe the G6. To my opinion the G6 thosen't fit in GM anymore mainy because the malibu is a much better car. My Suggestion for the G8, is for it to be added into the chevrolet line up but not as camaro sedan ss as edmunds suggested but as total new model.

To solve the soltice dilemma, I think it be awesome to have a little hot roster in the cadillac luxury brand, Wouldn't you agree. Cadillac should give the soltice a whole new make over to make it more appealing to cadillac buyers. Cadillac should offer the base model as the gxp(suspension and 265hp turbo 2.0litre direct fuel injected engine found in a gxp) and for the V series cadillac should offer the 300hp direct fuel injection 3.6 engine and transmition found in the Camaro and Cts. Give the V series rodsters a light weight treatment(like bmw does to it M series) and a better suspention and we have our selfs a winner.

Hummer as a brand needs to go but for all those offroaders out there, GM could built the sweetass Hummer HX concept they showed a year ago in Detroit as a new Hummer model for the Chevrolet brand.

Pontiac has two or three respectable cars out of its whole line up, which are Solstice, G8 and maybe the G6. To my opinion the G6 doesn’t fit in GM anymore mainly because the Malibu is a much better car. My Suggestion for the G8, is for it to be added into the Chevrolet line up but not as camaro sedan ss as Edmunds suggested but as total new model.

To solve the solstice dilemma, I think it be awesome to have a little hot roster in the Cadillac luxury brand, Wouldn't you agree. Cadillac should give the solstice a whole new make over to make it more appealing to Cadillac buyers. Cadillac should offer the base model as the gxp(suspension and 265hp turbo 2.0litre direct fuel injected engine found in a gxp) and for the V series Cadillac should offer the 300hp direct fuel injection 3.6 engine and transmit ion found in the Camaro and Cts. Give the V series roadsters a light weight treatment(like BMW does to it M series) and a better suspension and we have our self’s a winner.

Pontiac has two or three respectable cars out of its whole line up, which are Solstice, G8 and maybe the G6. To my opinion the G6 doesn’t fit in GM anymore mainly because the Malibu is a much better car. My Suggestion for the G8, is for it to be added into the Chevrolet line up but not as camaro sedan ss as Edmunds suggested but as total new model.

To solve the solstice dilemma, I think it be awesome to have a little hot roster in the Cadillac luxury brand, Wouldn't you agree. Cadillac should give the solstice a whole new make over to make it more appealing to Cadillac buyers. Cadillac should offer the base model as the gxp(suspension and 265hp turbo 2.0litre direct fuel injected engine found in a gxp) and for the V series Cadillac should offer the 300hp direct fuel injection 3.6 engine and transmit ion found in the Camaro and Cts. Give the V series roadsters a light weight treatment(like BMW does to it M series) and a better suspension and we have our self’s a winner.

Pontiac has two or three respectable cars out of its whole line up, which are Solstice, G8 and maybe the G6. To my opinion the G6 doesn’t fit in GM anymore mainly because the Malibu is a much better car. My Suggestion for the G8, is for it to be added into the Chevrolet line up but not as camaro sedan ss as Edmunds suggested but as total new model.

To solve the solstice dilemma, I think it be awesome to have a little hot roster in the Cadillac luxury brand, Wouldn't you agree. Cadillac should give the solstice a whole new make over to make it more appealing to Cadillac buyers. Cadillac should offer the base model as the gxp(suspension and 265hp turbo 2.0litre direct fuel injected engine found in a gxp) and for the V series Cadillac should offer the 300hp direct fuel injection 3.6 engine and transmit ion found in the Camaro and Cts. Give the V series roadsters a light weight treatment(like BMW does to it M series) and a better suspension and we have our self’s a winner.

Solstice is not a Pontiac. It is Opel/Vauxall design re-badged for USA. The whole line-up of Pontiac consisted of re-badged cars. It is not a bad concept but badly executed based solely on "buy American, American Revolution" slogans.
Good bye Pontiac.

I think the point of his article is that Pontiac/GM/Detroit should be building innovative cars. They don't They follow. They really never lead any more and they only build better stuff when they're forced to do so. It's not all the union's fault although they are part of it. I've talked to engineers and quality people who've worked at the plants. Unions are fundamentally about what they "won't" do. They don't go the extra mile and they're not inclined to improve anything on their own. Too bad because they know where all the bad welds and cheap plastic is.

At the end of the day it is management's fault. They cut corners, cut bad union deals, cut quality and cut cars that might've been the future. I like his comments that people who don't like cars should not be allowed to work in car companies. Does anyone agree that the last great car CEO, maybe CEO in general was Lee Iacoca? He worked from the bottom up. Nardelli has limited experience in manufacturing but he just finished flatlining Home Depot. The rest are run pretty much by finance guys, not by the engineers which is who dominates in Japanese and German car companies. It shows. They actually like cars.

I have thought the multiple divisions of GM, Ford and Chrysler have always been stupid. GM generally makes the same car under 4 or 5 badges. All they need is Chevy and Cadillac. The rest are superflous and a waste of resources. Do the Japanese and Germans have muliple divisions with identical cars, except for logos??? No.

I just hope after the near death experience that GM and Ford (Chrysler's toast) will certainly have that they come out with a cooperative union and a business model that will cause them to be competitive and maybe even lead once in awhile.

I agree that Pontiac's product has lacked any consistent philosophy or level of quality for a long time (certainly since I've been old enough to drive). To me they've always exemplified mediocre, guady, cheaply designed & built mass-market cars.

But to say they could've succeeded with better product is like saying, "The Cubs would be world champions if they'd get better players". It's true, but it ignores the reality of what it takes to build a winner (namely -- time, money, patience, foresight, skill, luck, and several other factors that were obviously lacking at Pontiac).

You know what killed Pontiac just as surely as a fairly lackluster product lineup and a pretense at being "a domestic BMW competitor"? Guys like The Mechanic. American auto journalists that always ranked their products as inferior to imports. In every road test, American journalists would say, "It's sporty, smooth, has a nice exhaust note, generates better performance and economy numbers than Import X, costs less, has more room inside, has good fit and finish, but I'd buy Import X in a second because it's so much more _____." (Fill in the blank with whatever excuse offered.) After 20+ years of American auto journalists dismissing qualities like these with the ever-present "but," a lot of negative assumptions were formed where they weren't always justified.

In truth, GM had to contend with both overcoming the traditional values of older Pontiac loyalists and trying to attract the attention of younger buyers who'd honestly never drive the same marque as their parents did. Especially not with a convenient "but," to latch on to.

The Mechanic, have you ever driven the last generation of Bonneville? It wasn't an SUV, it was a large, roomy, comfortable sedan with a big trunk, great highway gas mileage, good handling, a nice-riding yet taut suspension and enough oomph in the base V-6 to make highway passing a breeze or back road driving entertaining. Have you ever driven the immensely bland-looking G6's previous incarnation, the second-generation Grand Am? That car had pleasant and sporty on-road manners - and it was fun to wring the neck of when the red mist descended.

Products like the Aztek and Montana, then the G5 and G3 diluted the bloodline drastically. The good-looking but redundant final generation of Grand Prix did likewise.

While the G8 is a truly great car and the Solstice a reasonably fun and extremely attractive roadster, both are priced out of the expected range for most people walking into a Pontiac showroom looking for a sporty American family sedan or weekend fun runner.

Is it really too late for Pontiac? No. If every car enthusiast who cared and had the money or credit walked into the showroom today and bought a Poncho, we could rescue this marque. "BUT..."

Great article and I agree!!! Pontiac was brutally murdered and it started when GM seemed to just close its eyes to the Japanese and European imports that certainly took the spirit of Pontiac and refined it under their own brands. It really is a shame. The popular Grand Am, Grand Prix, Firebird, and even the Sunfire were all good idea's that just needed refinement and attention. Unfortunately GM just puts out new cars that can only be competative for a short time before Honda, Toyota, Mazda, and even Hyundai trample them with better products. Wake up GM, you cannot stay competative with the imports unless you stay alive and kicking to compete. The new cars coming out of Chevrolet at least look somewhat promising but these morons have to go further and they need to start focusing on quality and not quantity.